Rogozin Sticks a Knife into Northrop Grumman’s Antares Rocket
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said Russia will no longer sell rocket engines to U.S. companies, dealing a potentially fatal blow to Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket. The decision was made in retaliation for U.S. sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week.
Antares is powered by a pair of Russian RD-181 engines. The rocket’s first stage is built in Ukraine. The Russian invasion will likely cause a disruption in delivery of the rocket stages, if not a permanent end to them.
Antares has launched 16 times since April 2013, with 15 successes and one failure. The medium-lift rocket’s only payload has been Cygnus resupply ships bound for the International Space Station (ISS). Northrop Grumman has sold no other launches for the rocket.
Northrop Grumman officials say they have enough and stages to fly two more Cygnus missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under a delivery contract with NASA. Wikipedia indicates those launches are planned for this August and April 2023. Unless Russia reverses its decision, the company will need to find another ride to orbit for the freighters.
Three Cygnus resupply ships were launched aboard United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V boosters after Antares suffered a catastrophic failure seconds after launch in October 2014. A Cygnus freighter was destroyed in the explosion.
ULA is phasing out its Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets in favor of the Vulcan Centaur rocket. Atlas V is powered by Russian RD-180 engines. ULA said it has enough Russian engines to allow Atlas V to fly out its manifest. Obtaining more RD-180 engines is not possible in light of Rogozin’s announcement.
Rogozin tweeted that Russian personnel were no longer servicing 24 RD-180 engines that ULA has in the United States. He has warned the engines could fail in flight without the servicing work.
Delays by Blue Origin in providing flight-ready BE-4 engines for Vulcan Centaur’s first stage has pushed back the new booster’s maiden flight to the end of this year at the earliest.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 would be another option for launching Cygnus freighters. The booster is used to launch Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the space station.
26 responses to “Rogozin Sticks a Knife into Northrop Grumman’s Antares Rocket”
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Once UIkraine was actually invaded, Antares became a dead rocket walking regardless of which side prevailed. If Russia takes Ukraine, it won’t sell either 1st stages or engines to NorGrum. If Ukraine fights off the Russians, 1st stages might become available again, but Russia will still embargo the engines. So, based on current inventory, it’s two-and-done.
Atlas V and Ariane 5 no longer being available and Vulcan and Ariane 6 not yet being in service, the obvious stop-gap launcher for Cygnus is Falcon 9. NASA, I’m sure, would like to get its dissimilar redundancy back for CRS ASAP and so at least one more booster swap is probable. By 2024, Vulcan might be a candidate. By 2025, perhaps New Glenn and Neutron would also join the list of possibles. The most economical ride for Cygnus is likely to be Neutron which will offer very Antares-like performance and will even launch from the same pad at Wallops.
Without the Atlas V there is also no Starliner, unless Boeing (gasp!) adapts it to launch on a Falcon 9…
AIUI there is enough RD-180 engines stockpiled by ULA for the operational Starliner flights plus the OFT-2 and CFT flights. Unless Boring have contracts for more than a handful of non-NASA Starliner missions. It isn’t worth it to adapted another launcher for the Starliner. IMO.
This Ukraine situation really makes no practical difference to Starliner.
Boeing already knew they only had enough Atlas V rides for the original Commercial Crew contract. Even that is probably one Atlas V short, because of the extra unmanned test flight Starliner ended up needing.
So if Boeing ever had any hopes of doing anything with Starliner beyond the current Commercial Crew contract, they had to be planning for a different launch vehicle than the Atlas V.
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One would hope so. But the quality of Boeing planning in recent years doesn’t make that a slam-dunk by any means.
Well, didn’t Boeing make a failed bid for the newer CRS contract, pitching the Starliner as a cargo spacecraft? So they must be giving alternative launch vehicles some thought?
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Way back in the day, maybe. NASA turfed Boeing out of CRS-2 contention back in Nov. of 2015. That’s so long ago, SpaceX hadn’t even managed to successfully land an F9 1st stage yet. Since then, Boeing’s exclusive concentration has been on Starliner as a crew vehicle and the Atlas V as the launcher. As it can’t ride uphill inside a fairing, Starliner is much more problematical to repot to a different launcher than is, say, Cygnus – to cite a relevant example.
Unmanned, a cargo Starliner could easily ride within a fairing, since launch abort is irrelevant in that case.
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ULA had one extra contingency Atlas V.
You could well be right. I don’t know how many Atlas Vs ULA has set aside for Starliner, but perhaps it is enough to get Starliner through the rest of ISS’s likely operational lifespan. Of course, I’m also of the opinion that ULA will go broke before that, so that could further complicate matters down the road.
Boeing does claim on the Starliner website that the Starliner is launcher agnostic. So…
I’d like to see one launched by the JAXA H3!
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That would be fun to see.
Unlikely that NASA (more specificity Congress) will allow a crewed spacecraft to be launched on a non US launcher.
Why would Congress object? Did Congress object to Orbital Sciences using Russian and Ukrainian rocket components for launching Cygnus to the ISS? The boundaries of commercial private spaceflight for NASA civilian purposes are quite different compared to national security missions.
Getting one or more of our ISS partners more into the manned launch game pays off for them and pays off for NASA, as well as paying off for the Boeing Starliner. Win win win.
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AIUI, NASA is not allowed to launch NASA crewed spacecraft missions outside of the US or on a non-US launcher. Technically the OSC/O-ATK/NGSS Antares rocket is consider to be a US launcher since it was assembled in the US regardless of the country of origins with some of the rocket’s components.
AIUI, NASA is not allowed to launch NASA crewed spacecraft missions outside of the US or on a non-US launcher.
But NASA astronauts routinely launch into space on Russian Soyuz rockets from Star City in Kazakhstan. I fail to see any prohibition.
The Starliner is privately owned by Boeing, right? Why would NASA astronauts be prohibited from riding Starliner, if it were launched by a H3 rocket in Japan? The launch services are arranged by Boeing, who then sells rides to NASA, under the provisions of the Commercial Crew program. Right?
What am I missing?
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The Soyuz is a Russian launcher, not a NASA launcher.
ITAR regulations classified crewed spacecraft as munitions subjected to arms export controls. Boeing is not likely be able to transfer the Starliner to a foreign country. AIUI NASA astronauts can ride up to orbit in non-NASA spacerafts on launchers in foreign countries. However since only three countries has current crew launch capability; US, Russia & China. NASA can only get a ride with the Russians. The Wolf Amendment prohibits NASA from doing business and most contacts with the Chinese.
Also the current crewed spacecrafts are launched to orbit with specified launchers. The Japanese MHI H3 launcher is not man-rated until someone pays a lot to certified it for crew with a specif spacecraft. Never mind that it hasn’t flown yet.
Finally the US commercial crew program requires US spacecrafts to launched from the US on US launchers by the program bidders, IIRC.
Finally the US commercial crew program requires US spacecrafts to launched from the US on US launchers by the program bidders, IIRC.
Is that a guess? Or have you seen something?
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Also the current crewed spacecrafts are launched to orbit with specified launchers. The Japanese MHI H3 launcher is not man-rated until someone pays a lot to certified it for crew with a specif spacecraft. Never mind that it hasn’t flown yet.
Considering there are so many Atlas V already set aside for Starliner, the earliest date that Starliner would need a replacement launch vehicle is 2029. Plenty of time for human rating whatever alternative is used, H3 or otherwise.
Perhaps even the Neutron launch vehicle!
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Neutron will only be able to get 8 tonnes to LEO and probably less than that to ISS. Starliner masses 13 tonnes at launch. Then there would be the problem of adapting Neutron to carry it. That SPECTRE nose would have to go at a minimum.
Expendable Neutron can get 16 tons to orbit. Rocket Labs already says the retractable fairing on reusable Neutron would not be part of a manned Neutron launcher.
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Yes. And Starliner apparently contains some Russian-sourced parts, so it’s not just the engines of its launch vehicles that are problematic. Assuming Russian bits on the Starliner bill of material can be replaced or second-sourced, Falcon 9 could probably be adapted to launch Starliner. But, as with Cygnus, NASA would likely much prefer some other solution that preserves dissimilar redundancy. For now, I believe ULA has set aside a few of its remaining Atlas Vs for Starliner. I don’t know how many but assume it is at least three – one each for OFT-2, CFT and the first operational mission. There might be more. By the time all those are flown, in any case, alternatives other than Falcon 9 might well be available. The three main contenders would be Vulcan, New Glenn and Terran-R. Terran-R is likely to be the least costly of the three.
It does look like there is room now for another competitor. A new billionaire launch club member with some technical and organizational smarts. A few Falcon/Merlin alumni along with a variety of other talent might be able to give SpaceX a run for its’ money vs. Falcon. It seems reasonable that a clean sheet design with urgency could be flying contemporary with the three you named.
Starship being a wild card so wait and see.
That is still possible, I suppose, though time is growing short and I don’t know what billionaire that would be. In any case, Relativity, at least, has already raised billionaire-class money and has a number of SpaceX veteranos on board. So it’s not like that ecological niche isn’t already pretty well filled.
Maybe true. I have seen several people go from small crew to millionaire in niches that were seemingly filled. Then half of them lose that status when the market changed. I don’t track billionaires and note that Elon was not in that class when he founded SpaceX.
If there develops a robust space economy as many of us expect, there will be underserved niches as a route for competition. Sears was a powerhouse and where is it now.
A classic comeback by Elon Musk on Twiiter…
https://twitter.com/elonmus…